loved you (past tense)
by Xmarksthespot
Summary: "I loved you because it was the end of the world…and now that we're safe, I don't know what to feel." - Dick


**Title**: loved you (past tense)  
**By**: Xmarksthespot  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own  
**Notes**: Because I have so many midterms this week, I'm really stressed. Please show some love?

**X-X-X**

Barbara passes Dick a beer just after he sits on the stool next to her, like she had known he was going to come right at that moment.

There's loud music reverberating all around them—dull, heavy beats playing in sync with their heartbeats. The atmosphere is warm and humid; the clammy, raw smell of sweat lingering at their nostrils upon entrance. It isn't noticeable after the first ten minutes—after the first shot of whatever numbs their thoughts.

It should have been in a more private place with no music or crowds. Everywhere, there are people grinding up against one another, making out without first learning their partner's name. The stench of vomit trailing along the cracks of the bathroom floors certainly ruins the mood more than anything. The grinning faces of the barely legal teens and the laughter of the finally turning-21 drinkers aren't appropriate.

Not for this anyway.

"You know," he starts, just loud enough for her to hear. He takes a sip from the cool, glass bottle before continuing. "The first time I saw you here, man, I thought to myself: she's got to be the most beautiful woman in all of Gotham."

She snorts and without an itch of thought to turn and face him for the first time that night, she says, "You act as if we met here."

And they didn't. No, they met somewhere in the depths of Gotham Academy's elementary school, or perhaps her father's office. The playground? Neither of them really remembers at this point, and it doesn't really matter. No one thinks about the first chapter when they're on the last.

He shrugs and has the urge to lean back, but only the musky air greets his back instead of the familiar office chair (instead of _her_ body pressed up against his). Dick pulls himself forward so that his arms rest up on the bar.

"We _could_ have met here. I mean, I don't think it really occurred to me that _the_ Barbara Gordon would be that hot in skin tight clothes." He laughs.

Barbara finally turns and raises an eyebrow, a hint of amusement gracing the edges of her lips. "If only you knew at the time that it was '_The_ Barbara Gordon', and not just some strange redhead you've never met with kickass moves, you wouldn't have wasted so much time showing off in tights."

"You've got to admit, those were some pretty cool moves, if I say so myself," he tells her as he nods the bottle in her direction.

She doesn't say anything and gulps another mouthful of her own bottle, the bitter aftertaste complimenting the burn at the back of her throat. She's not one for drinks, having to spend most of her day time working in offices, and night time working with children and teens. She has them at restaurants, fancy parties that she's force to attend, maybe even get-togethers with her female colleagues. Those have been rare lately.

"So what's up?"

Dick's voice captures Barbara's attention away from the malty, golden drink. He's fidgeting with the label circling his bottle.

Barbara glances in his direction with a curt nod of her head, and shakes it in disbelief.

"What?"

"You're the one who wanted to talk, Dick," she reminds him.

The paper between his fingers rips. His face contorts into a look of distraught, with eyes focusing at a never-ending abyss of destruction and eyebrows arching into a pair of collapsed bridges. Barbara almost wants to take back her words.

Dick finally straightens himself on his seat and takes note of how quiet the club is to him despite everyone having to yell for words to travel into people's ears.

"We almost died the other day."

She hums an agreement. Yeah, it's hard not to forget escaping some of Earth's most powerful villains with their weapons of mass destruction, some of which included a measly blade that almost threatened to slice her lungs like pizza, or a bullet that _could have_ paralyzed her from the waist down.

He doesn't hear her response, and the back of his mind is singing along to the upbeat track playing in the background. He has never liked this part of relationships. His face crinkles again.

"You told me you loved me."

Barbara shrugs. "I've told you that before."

Dick's grip around the glass bottle tightens. "I know. But it's different when you know it's the last time."

A shiver runs down her spine and she thinks, _so he knew it too_.

And after some time of just listening to the empty chatter in the room, the shrieks and giggles and the awful remixes of songs that shouldn't have been playing in the first place, Dick speaks again. "So why did you say it?"

"Say what?" She asks him, but already knows herself what he was talking about. Barbara just wanted to repeat that moment in her head again and again. She gulps.

"That you loved me."

"We were dying, Dick," she tells him calmly. "It felt like the right thing to do. I certainly wasn't going to let the last words out of my mouth—the last words you ever got to hear from me—be 'let's have angry sex after this because I'm tired of this shit'."

He grins widely. "I wouldn't have minded hearing that before I died. Sex was great by the way."

Barbara could only chuckle and nod in agreement, and then she stops at a sudden thought.

"You just realized it too, huh?" He asks her.

Her displeased expression confirms his statement: they weren't going to have angry sex again. Or just regular sex.

"Bummer," he mutters, and while Barbara may not have heard him, he knows she's thinking the same thing. "We could just go back to being friends with bene—"

"Don't you think that's what got us into this mess in the first place?" Barbara asks, glaring down the bartender with leering eyes and an all-too-nosy expression before he surrenders and walks to the other end of the bar.

Dick holds out a fist to bump with hers, approving her Batman-imitation. "Friends without benefits, then," he settles and then sighs, leaning back before remembering the lack of support and pulling himself forward again.

Dick begins to fidget with the paper around his beer bottle, and Barbara looks up at the twinkling and distracting set of lights, squinting at the neon colours that pale in comparison to the stars among the skyscrapers.

"Hey," Dick calls out loud again. "What do you think happened to us?"

She doesn't respond right away. She first pushes herself from the stool and turns around to see all the dancers—sees all the joy and passion of wanting to just be someone else for the night and _forget_ everything by the morning after.

Her back is leaning against the wooden framework behind her and she could feel Dick hovering nearby, a new bottle in his hand. Her mind promptly tells her that he's not watching her.

"We were one of those couples," Barbara says vaguely after a long moment of thought.

Dick pulls the beer away from his mouth and takes his time to register her words.

"The ones who fall out of love?"

Barbara sighs.

"The ones who were never really in love with each other to begin with."

Barbara swears she hears a simple 'oh' come from Dick's lips.

Neither one of them says anything else.

They just stand by the bar.

They drink.


End file.
